Alain Vandenborre is Executive Chairman & Founder of Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange Pte Ltd. SDiX launched the world first global commodity exchange in physically settled diamonds in May 2015 with brokers and trading hours covering London, Zurich, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Mr. Vandenborre founded his first company in Belgium at the age of 26, developing new laser technologies for microelectronic design applications. In Singapore he is the co-founder and shareholder of Le Freeport Management Pte Ltd – formerly known as The Singapore Freeport Pte Ltd. He has been a Board Member at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore since 2006. Alain is Chairman and co-founder of The Red Pencil and passionately supporting this international humanitarian mission founded by his wife Laurence in 2012.
His past professional activities include various positions in large multinational companies (MD for Suez Group and CFO for Vivendi Group in Asia) as well in the private equity and venture capital industry (Viventures Asia) where he served several years from 2001 to 2006 as Chairman of the Asia Pacific Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and Chairman of the Singapore Venture Capital Association.
Mr. Vandenborre holds an MA in Astrophysics from the University of Liege (Summa cum Laude), an Optoelectronics Engineering degree from the University of Paris and an Executive Master in Management from the Solvay Business School of the University of Brussels. In 1977, at the age of 17, he was awarded the National Young Scientist Award of Belgium and received a scholarship to study a few months at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. From 1984 to 1989 he was appointed Lecturer in Optical and Quantum Physics at the University of Liege and from 1992 to 1995 he was appointed Lecturer at the University of Brussels HEC and Solvay Business School. His lectures covered topics like Corporate Strategy, Finance and Shareholder Value Creation.
Mr. Vandenborre has published two books on Singapore: “Proudly Singaporean – My Passport to a Challenging Future” published by SNP in August 2003 and “The Little Door to the New World” published by SNP International in September 2005 and also published in China and Cambodia.
